


Learning Curve

by emiv



Series: Companion Pieces to The Longer You Stay [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Adoption, Family, Gen, Nolanverse!Robins, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:02:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emiv/pseuds/emiv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it comes to parenthood, Selina’s not the only one with a learning curve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Language Barriers

**Author's Note:**

> The first of three short stories centered around Bruce and the boys over the course of [_The Longer You Stay_.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/710551/chapters/1313489)

The front door slammed shut.

 _That went well,_ Bruce thought, shaking his head as he settled down on the couch. He frowned. He hadn’t expected Selina to agree to this without some discussion, but he’d thought it’d go a little smoother.

He’d been wrong.

The door to the bathroom opened; Bruce glanced over the back of the couch. Steam billowed out into the small living room, filling it with the faint smell of soap. The boy shuffled out, fresh clothes sticking to still damp skin, black hair clean but still wild and sticking up in places, hastily fluffed by the towel draped around his neck.

“I borrowed a towel,” Dick said, settling down on the end of the couch. Bruce nodded. Dick glanced around the room.

“Where’s Selina?”

“Out,” Bruce said. Dick nodded but didn’t reply, a frown on his lips. Bruce held back a sigh.

 _Still the right call,_ he told himself. He looked over the boy beside him. His eyes were red, his face puffy.

The shower was a good place to cry.

Bruce remembered that.

Dick shifted, his eyes fixed on his lap. Bruce didn’t attempt to fill the silence. No words would help.

He knew that better than most.

After a minute, Dick reached for the remote. He paused, glancing up at Bruce. “Do you mind?” Bruce shook his head. Dick turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, studying each one, looking for something.

“You know Italian?” Bruce asked.

“No,” Dick said. “But I’m a good guesser.” Bruce raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been watching this one all day,” he continued, stopping on what appeared to be a soap opera. “Lots of people, lots of yelling, lots of bad makeup.” Dick looked up at Bruce; the briefest of smiles pulled at the corners of his lips before he turned back to the screen.

 _Strange,_ Bruce thought. A pair of voices filled the apartment, chasing away the silence. Dick leaned forward, his face intense as he watched the feuding lovers.

The room darkened as the sun set. Dick settled deeper into the couch, folding his legs up in front of him, his eyes never leaving the TV. Bruce leaned back, watching Dick from the corner of his eye. He frowned.

Bringing the boy home was the right call, but that didn’t mean Bruce had the slightest idea what was supposed to come next.

“I think that lady’s in love with the blond guy,” Dick said, pulling Bruce out of his thoughts. He glanced over at the boy, who nodded toward the TV. “But he’s married to the pretty redhead.”  
  
Bruce looked back to the screen, tilted his head.

“Actually,” he replied after a moment. “I believe that’s her brother.” Dick’s eyes widened. Bruce shrugged. “I know a little Italian.”

The boy’s smile grew wider, taking some of the heaviness from his face.

“So,” Dick asked, leaning in closer. A flicker of light danced behind his blue eyes. “What’s happening now?”


	2. Mistaken Identities

“Am I in trouble or something?” Jason asked as he hopped across the threshold of the apartment, tugging on his sneakers. He pulled the front door closed behind him.

“You two need a break from each other,” Bruce replied, pausing halfway down the stairs, waiting for the boy to catch up. “And Selina need’s a break from the both of you.”

“Dick started it.”

“Did he?” Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow. Jason shrugged.   
  
“Well, half of it.”

_That,_ Bruce thought, _is probably true._ He shook his head as they continued down the two flights of stairs to the building’s main door.

“So, boss, where’re we going?” Jason asked, shoving his hands into his pockets as they stepped out into the fading afternoon sunlight. The air around them was warm with approaching summer, the light soft and pink.

“Bread,” Bruce said as they began to walk. Selina had asked him to pick a loaf up for dinner. She’d also asked for a tranq gun or a taser, whichever he came across first. Bruce wasn’t entirely sure she’d been kidding. “There’s a bakery around the corner.”

Jason stopped mid-step.

“I know a better one,” he said, tilting his head in the opposite direction. Bruce paused, giving Jason a steady look before nodding in agreement. He let the boy take the lead as they headed toward the shadier end of town.

“The owners are real nice,” Jason said, scuffing his sneakers against the sidewalk. “They’d give out day-old scraps, you know, the stuff they couldn’t sell.”

Bruce nodded, watching Jason out of the corner of his eye as they walked. Several weeks off the streets, Jason still had quite the swagger. He was forever attempting to seem bigger, to seem older than he was.

Some habits were hard to break.

Bruce understood.

The sun continued to set as they walked the streets of Paris. The further they went, the more talkative Jason got. He told Bruce all about the neighborhoods they were walking through, naming the places and people he’d known, the trouble he’d gotten into.

“...and that’s where old lady Rousseau lives,” Jason said, pointing down an alleyway to a faded pink door. “She’s crazy, but pretty nice. Just don’t get on her bad side, or she’ll sic her monkey on you.”

“Monkey?” Bruce asked.

“Well, it’s really a giant rat on a leash, but she _calls_ it a monkey.” 

Bruce snickered.

“I tried to point that out to her once and she flipped,” Jason continued. “Damn rat chased me for three blocks—”

Jason stopped, closed his eyes and sniffed. A row of street lights flickered to life in the waning twilight, a faint bakery sign glowed in the distance. Bruce caught the faint smell of fresh bread lingering in the air.

“It’s right up here,” Jason said, opening his eyes. He gave Bruce a quick grin before heading back down the sidewalk, walking faster; Bruce shook his head, following him at the same leisurely pace as before.

Jason was several feet in front of Bruce when he passed by another alley. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce caught a flicker in the shadows.

_“Well, look who we have here,”_ came a stranger's voice. A rough hand reached out for Jason’s shirt. 

It never got that far.

Bruce had Jason’s would-be attacker slammed against the nearest brick wall, arms pinned behind his back, before the man realized he was there.

“You’ve mistaken my son for someone else.” Bruce leaned in, kept his voice low. The man squirmed. Bruce added pressure, pushing him harder into the brick. “You’re not going to make that mistake again, are you?”

“N-no.”

“Good.” Bruce released his grip, tossing the man into the alley. He stumbled to his feet and ran away, never looking back. Bruce brushed his hands together; that old familiar spike of adrenaline began to ebb. He felt the corner of his lip twitch.

“Whoa,” Jason said, finding his voice. “You sure scared him.”

Bruce let out a soft snort. “You all right?” he asked.

“Peachy,” Jason replied. “You’re a hell of a bodyguard.” Bruce felt Jason inch closer. They stood together, unmoving, staring down the empty alley.

“So,” Jason said. “ _Son_ , huh?” 

Bruce pressed his lips together; he didn’t have to look to know Jason was smirking.

“Come on.” He ushered the boy back down the sidewalk toward the smell of bread. 


	3. Naming Conventions

“Dick, _darling_ , please stop. People are beginning to stare.”

At the sound of Selina’s voice, Bruce looked up from his tablet screen and its long spreadsheet of numbers. Across the aisle of chairs, Dick balanced upside down in a handstand on the arm of a chair, his feet in the air, shirt bunching up around his head.

A soft chuckle came from the seat beside Bruce’s; it was the most noise Tim had made in several hours.

“I don’t mind,” Dick answered her, wobbling slightly as he went from two hands to one.

“Of course, you don’t,” Jason said. He was sprawled out a few chairs down, legs hanging over the arm of one, head cushioned against his backpack on the other. “Show-off.”

Bruce sighed. He’d considered asking Lucius for the jet for the trip back from Cairo, but decided it would have been a bit conspicuous.

Then again, so was a thirteen-year-old acrobat vaulting off chairs in a crowded airport terminal.

“Well, I mind,” Selina said to Dick, glancing up from her magazine. Bruce caught the slightest hint of a smirk on her lips. “So... _stop_.” 

Bruce shook his head.

_Traveling used to be easier,_ he thought, glancing down at the seat next to his. He would have assumed the newly adopted six-year-old would have been the most ansty member of their party, but Tim remained quiet as a mouse, sitting inhumanly still, his dark head bent over Selina’s phone, focused on the puzzle game on the screen.

Across the aisle, Dick flipped down, still smiling as he settled back into his seat.

“Can we go to the gift shop?”

“Hey, yeah, can we?” Jason echoed, untangling his legs from the chair and sitting up straight.

“No,” Selina said out-of-hand. But that wasn’t the end of it.

It never was.

Bruce listened to Dick and Jason’s pleadings with half an ear, leaving the brunt of this particular conflict in Selina’s capable hands. Beside him, Tim didn’t stir, the only sound from him came from the game he played, the faint melody nearly drowned out by the far-off noise of the busy terminal and much closer voices of the two older boys.

Less than a minute later, Selina gave in. As the boys stood and stretched, pulling on their backpacks, she leaned over to mutter in Bruce’s ear.

“I’ll take them,” she said. “but you’re sitting between them on the plane.” Bruce snickered, his eyes still focused on the screen in his lap. He nodded.

It was a fair trade.

“You wanna come, Timmy?” Dick asked. Tim looked up from the phone and shook his head. He watched them leave for a moment before returning to his game. A calm settled over their small area of empty chairs. Bruce returned to his work.

After a few minutes, Bruce realized that the soft, constant melody had stopped. He glanced down to find Tim staring up at him, a question behind his wide blue eyes.

“Dick and Jason call you Bruce.”

Bruce nodded.

“Why?” Tim asked.

“It’s my name, Tim.”

Tim’s face scrunched up, his head tilted to one side.

“But you’re their dad, aren’t you?”

_Ah,_ Bruce thought.

“Kind of,” he replied.

“But they don’t call you Dad.”

Bruce shook his head.

“No, they don’t.”

“Oh.” Tim looked back down, his fingers playing with the edges of the phone, lips pursed together. He looked up again. “Can Bruce _mean_ Dad?” 

Bruce paused, feeling a slight tug at the corner of his lip.

“Yes,” he said. “I suppose it can.”

“Oh,” Tim said, a soft smile on his face. “OK.”

With that, he returned to his game. Bruce shook his head. He made a half-hearted attempt to get back to work but found himself lost in thought until the initial boarding call for their flight came over the PA.

“That’s us,” Bruce said, slipping his tablet into his briefcase. He looked around but didn’t see any sign of Selina, Dick or Jason. He turned to Tim. “Should we leave without them, you think?”

Tim looked up at him, smiled and shook his head.

“We better go find them, then,” Bruce said, standing up and collecting his bag. Tim hopped down from his seat, following after Bruce as they headed in the direction of the gift shop.

Bruce had taken two steps before he felt Tim reach out and take his hand.


End file.
